


Dark Water

by TwinkieMonsterTallah



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aiden and Alessa are twins, Aiden's a little shit, Does this count?, I Tried, I don't think I made that clear, drowning as written by someone who's never drowned, my baby Inquisitor, this is when he's seven, trigger warning?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 22:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13176492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinkieMonsterTallah/pseuds/TwinkieMonsterTallah
Summary: After only a moment of struggling, Aiden felt himself sinking into the water. Somewhere far away, he thought, ‘Maybe Mama was right about the tree…’ blackness clouded his vision, and for just a moment, he was sure he felt the hand of Falon’din on his arm.





	Dark Water

Aiden ran out of the aravel holding his sister’s hand tightly while their mother called after them. “Stay away from the tree!” she was yelling. “I don’t want you getting hurt!” 

The tree she spoke of was an old oak that had fallen during the storms of the last week. The rain had been heavy enough to tear through a couple of the older tents, and the river had flooded and forced the clan to move their camp further away, despite the rain and mud making it difficult. The flooding and rushing of the river was what had torn the tree down, and it had moved downriver before catching on the rocks below the water. 

Seeing as the river had finally slowed down after several days, the Lavellan children were eager to go resume playing in the water. Alessa, Aiden's sister, was wanting to go listen to the Keeper teach her First about the proper uses of magic since her own magic had manifested. The only reason she had allowed Aiden to pull her along was because he had promised that he would take her with him next time he snuck after the hunters when they went to a human city to trade. 

He had told her that they were loud and smelly and dirty, nothing like their beautiful forests and plains, but the things you could see and hear were sometimes funny and sometimes were the kinds of things their mother still tried to protect them from. At seven years old, Aiden considered himself all grown up – he was practically ready for a vallaslin, he had told their laughing mother. 

Reaching the river, Aiden saw that the other children had already begun to pick through the mud, finding the pretty rocks that might have washed downriver. “Hey Less, d’you think I can find the prettiest rock?” Aiden asked excitedly. 

Alessa shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do you want to find a rock?” 

Aiden looked at the small pile of smooth, shiny river rocks the other boys had found and thought for a moment before replying, “Because I need to prove my rock is better.” 

“But why do you need the best rock?” Alessa crossed her arms. 

“Because… because I need it!” Aiden said. 

“Why?” 

“Because the others will think I’m the best!” 

“Why do you need to be the best?” 

Aiden stomped his foot. “Because I do! Why can’t you just accept that?” 

Alessa sat down on the bank. “I don’t want to swim and look for rocks. Have fun being best.” 

Frustrated and confused as to why his sister suddenly didn’t want to do anything with him anymore, Aiden waded out into the water and began to look around. He moved away from where the other boys were digging and stirring up the mud and went to look closer to the tree. He was sure his mother was just paranoid about the tree; maybe she thought there would still be poisonous spiders in it. 

Aiden took a breath and ducked under the water to look around and see if anything caught his eye, and almost immediately he found a large dark red rock with lighter red spots. 

 

************** 

 

Almost an hour later, Aiden had a small collection of stones sitting in a neat little pile next to Alessa. The bloodstone rock had gotten her attention, but none of them had impressed her at all, so Aiden kept trying. He had slowly moved closer to the tree, but no one had said anything about it. 

On his umpteenth time ducking under the water, a slight shine caught his eye. He looked to where it was coming from and saw that something shiny was in the branches of the tree. Popping above the water to let out a small shout of excitement and take a breath, Aiden dove back under to go retrieve the shiny. 

The branches of the tree made a winding tunnel to the object, but Aiden got through it with no problem. The object turned out to be a necklace with some kind of pendant on it, snagged on a few branches. It almost seemed like it had been put there on purpose as Aiden unclasped the chain and unwound it from the sticks around it. Had a shem’len girl hidden her necklace and then lost it in the storm? No matter; it was his now, and Aiden was sure that this would impress Alessa. Maybe she’d want to go swimming with him again! 

While leaving the tree, Aiden felt a tug on his foot. He looked back and saw that a branch had gone through a rip in his pants, and was holding his leg in place. Holding the necklace tightly in one hand, he twisted down to unhook his pant leg. He slightly yelped when a few twigs tangled in his hair and tugged, keeping him from reaching his leg. He reached up to grab his hair and pull it off of the twigs, but his fingers brushed a larger branch. He couldn’t find where his hair was tangled. 

His chest was beginning to burn thanks to his yell, and Aiden knew he had to get air, and he found himself thinking he’d rather get air before he drowned. 

Hey, that was sarcastic! He was totally an adult! 

He smiled for a second before trying to tug his head away from the branches and jerk his leg up at the same time. All he accomplished was to rip out a bit of hair and knee himself  
in the face. His leg was still stuck, but his hair was free. 

Beginning to panic a little from not being able to breathe, Aiden bent back down and swiftly pulled the stick out of his pants, but when he turned around to swim back up he found the way blocked by more branches. Where was the small pathway he had come through? The river wasn’t that deep! He should be able to get to the surface easily! 

The water was beginning to become noticeably cold, and it was getting hard to move his arms and legs. Aiden desperately wanted to breathe, and with his thoughts beginning to become clouded and slower, he let his breath out. He realized his mistake when he tried to breathe in and inhaled a lungful of silt-filled water. He choked and thrashed around, trying to push branches aside and get to the surface, but he only managed to tangle himself up more. 

After only a moment of struggling, Aiden felt himself sinking into the water. Somewhere far away, he thought, ‘Maybe Mama was right about the tree…’ blackness clouded his vision, and for just a moment, he was sure he felt the hand of Falon’din on his arm. 

 

*************************** 

 

“There he goes!” 

“Turn him on his side!” 

“What was he thinking?” 

Voices clamored above Aiden as he began to violently cough and vomit dirty river water. Large hands turned him so he wouldn’t choke on water going back down, and he spewed water as his body forced it all out. 

When most of the water was out, Aiden was finally able to catch his breath. He looked around when he was able, and he found all of the other boys, his sister, several of the adults, and the Keeper all standing over him. 

Aiden had the grace to look sheepish as he was hauled to his feet. 

 

*********************** 

 

After two hours of being yelled at by his parents, his sister, Keeper Istimaethoriel, the hunter who had thankfully been passing by and had been alerted by the other boys, his parents again, and then one more good slap on the wrist from the Keeper, Aiden had been thoroughly chastised for his stupid decision to swim under the fallen tree. 

His left hand had remained clenched the entire time, and no one said a word until after everyone was done having their turn of chewing his ass out. Alessa pointed at Aiden's hand and asked him, “Are you about to hit someone?” 

Aiden lifted his hand and opened his fingers, realizing for the first time that they were sore and cramped from being balled in a fist for so long. In his palm the necklace he had salvaged glittered in the afternoon sunlight. Now that he could see it clearly, he saw that he was holding a locket, and clicking it open revealed a soggy little flower that might have been preserved at some point, but now was falling to little pieces. Aiden dumped the water and ruined flower out and shut it again. 

Holding it out to Alessa, Aiden smiled. “I got this for you. I thought maybe if it was pretty enough, you’d want to play with me again.” 

Alessa took the locket and looked at it for a moment, then tucked it away into a pocket. “I didn’t stop playing with you because you didn’t have the prettiest rock.” She kicked at a rock in the ground as she spoke. “When my magic came, Mama and Dad took me aside and told me that my magic could hurt people if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t want to hurt you.” 

Aiden blinked and then said, “Aw! I’m not dashing!” 

“What?” 

“I’m trying to be all grown up and prove that I’m ready to get a vallaslin, and then you have to say something all grown up and steal my thunder!” Aiden explained. “My sister is more heroic than I am!” 

Alessa punched Aiden on the arm. “Of course I’m more heroic. I’m a girl, just like the Keeper. Girls rule.” 

Aiden’s shoulders slumped a bit at those words. “I… I suppose you’re right.” he admitted. 

“Hey.” Alessa poked Aiden's cheek. "You can still be cool. The Hero of Ferelden is a guy." 

"But he's a mage and I'm not." Aiden protested. 

"So? If he can save Ferelden, so can you." Alessa ruffled Aiden's hair the way their parents sometimes did. 

After Alessa quietly left, Aiden looked down at his hand. The seam of the locket had left a raised purple welt across his palm, and now that he was paying attention to it, it stung like a bee. Being a hero had gotten him into a lot of trouble, and he didn't know if that was worth any kind of minstrel's song. Maybe he would wait until he was an adult so no one could yell at him.

**Author's Note:**

> Awkwardly written ending is awkwardly written.
> 
> Yooooo! Damn it's been a while since I've posted ANYTHING. Sorry for the absence; school and work got intense, then I kept moving, and then I got into the Dragon Age video games and lost my ever-lovin' mind. 
> 
> Aiden is my Inquisitor and I absolutely love him to bits, so I'm going to try to get writing again! 
> 
> A small announcement; if you guys really like any of my (cringey) old fanfictions, you might want to download them because I'm going to be deleting a LOT of them soon.


End file.
